Happy 10th birthday Skype!

Today marks ten years since the launch of Skype, the free internet calling app that has grown to over 300 million users. A startup from Estonia, from the developers of the peer to peer file sharing app Kazaa, Skype went on to be bought by Microsoft for $8.5 million, and replace Windows Live Messenger as Microsoft’s communication app.

Skype is incredibly popular but there are plenty of apps snapping at its heals in 2013. Viber is the obvious direct competitor, but others such as LINE are getting extremely popular too. The merger of Messenger and Skype exposed some of Skype’s weaknesses, such as no email notifications and a weaker emoticon offering than other apps.

However, if you want to make voice or video calls, Skype is excellent whether you’re on your desktop or mobile devices.